


Wishful Thinking

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13941486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ren needs to keep Hux close. Hux needs to sleep.





	Wishful Thinking

**Author's Note:**

> This is tropey and self-indulgent. P.S. is this soft enough to be soft kylux? Too soft? I'm new here. Tell me how soft we gotta be.

 

To say that Hux didn’t have a choice was diminutive. He always had a choice. Currently, he was choosing not to be unceremoniously executed and then tossed into the garbage.

“Strip,” Ren said when they’d got to his quarters. “Not in a gross way,” he quickly added, shooting Hux a look over his shoulder.

 _Not in a gross way._ The words buzzed through Hux’s sleep-deprived mind until he ludicrously found himself _offended_. He wondered if that bizarre affront was going to be the final tinder poked into the center of this entire situation that would see him spontaneously combust.

“Just. I want to see if you have any knives on you other than that dagger you’ve been obsessing about for the last hour.”

Ren had turned to face him now and Hux… Hux was so unbelievably tired that he just pursed his lips into a grim line and said nothing. Ren looked equally drained, but there was still something manic in the back of his red-rimmed eyes.

“So, strip,” Ren said again holding out a gloved hand, “and I’ll get you something to sleep in. You’re staying here.”

It was no more surreal than the myriad other situations Hux had found himself in as of late. Whether continuing the evening tucked up under Ren’s wing like a baby chick was more safe or less was a call he didn’t yet have enough intel to make.

With a wary glance at the proffered hand, Hux slipped out of his greatcoat and handed it to Ren who took it and slung it over his other arm. That pattern continued with the rest of Hux’s clothes until he was standing before Ren in just his briefs, handing over his monomolecular blade. Ren continued to stare, expectant. Hux blanched.

“Look,” he said, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and tugging the sides down one after the other to momentarily expose the sections of naked skin there, devoid of weaponry. Not that being nude in front of Ren would have mattered, but _stars_ , a little imagined dignity wouldn’t go amiss.

“There’s only one other place I could have stashed something,” Hux continued, “and I sincerely hope you don’t want to check.”

Even as the words left his mouth, his traitorous mind (which really shouldn’t have had the energy left for extracurriculars) was conjuring up a vision of what wouldn’t be the worst, oh, let’s say _twenty minutes_ of his life to date.

Ren narrowed his eyes, but he took Hux’s things to the closet where he dumped them on the floor before keying the door shut and engaging the locks. He stalked to his dresser and pulled out a pair of sweatpants which he handed to Hux. Hux took them and held them up in front of himself by the waistband. They were, frankly, hilariously too large.

“These aren’t going to fit me, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, partly because it was obviously true, and partly because the urge to be contrary was niggling at him like a loose tooth.

“Why not?” Ren asked. He snatched them back.

“Well. I’m… too narrow,” Hux conceded, taking in the full, unnecessary bulk of Ren. He was still completely dressed. If all that black he wore was trimming, Hux was privately curious to see the rest of him… _unmasked_ , as it were.

Hux really needed to get some sleep.

Ren’s gaze flicked from Hux’s face to the sweatpants he had fisted in that big paw of his and back. Then, to Hux’s exhausted horror, his scrutiny continued slowly down the length of him until it landed at Hux’s waist and stayed for an unfathomably long moment. It was as if Ren was just now choosing to see that Hux had various individual qualities. As if it had never occurred to him. As if Hux had never truly occurred to him.

Hux felt the blush start to warm his cheeks and then spread. It was born of equal parts embarrassment and awkward rage and he could no more stop it than he could stop Ren at the time being. Hux stood and waited until Ren’s eyes snapped back up and then away. He thrust the sweatpants back at Hux’s chest.

“Just put them on,” he said. Hux did and rolled the waist of them a few times so that they’d stay.

“C’mon.”

Ren led him to the fresher where Ren cleaned his teeth and then offered Hux the mouthwash. After the day Hux had had, the refreshing sting of the antiseptic liquid felt nearly decadent. Ren ran a basin full of water which he dipped his hands into and then lightly splashed his face. Hux watched in the mirror as Ren half-heartedly scrubbed some of the day’s smoke and grime from his cheeks and forehead and then just took a moment to rub tiredly at his eyes.

Ren really was handsome, in his way. His aquiline nose was maybe overlarge for good looks, but something about the completed countenance called to Hux. It was a dramatic thing to think, and even more dramatic to realize it was undeniably true. It was the eyes, probably. Hux didn’t let himself dwell on them often, the intensity in their depths ran parallel with a kind of soft emotionality that Hux had never known. He wanted to think of it exclusively as a weakness, but sometimes…

“Are you done?” Ren asked and Hux came back to himself with a jolt. Ren was staring at him in the mirror, looking impatient. Hux spit in the sink, rinsed his mouth with a handful of water, and they went to bed.

Hux was going to blame his excess of stress and lack of sleep for the thoughts. He climbed into Ren’s bed and Ren had him scoot over to the wall side. Then, unfortunately, Ren got undressed.

Lying in the dark next to Ren, with Ren’s completely unnecessary bulk putting off heat like a furnace, Hux stared at the ceiling. Bloody unfair, that’s what it was. Bad enough that he was handsome and an utter bastard. To have thighs like that…

“Can you go back to thinking about knives,” Ren snapped abruptly, “or just shut up?”

“What?” Hux asked, then a hot shock of realization waved through him like a fever.

“That crap about me! I know you’ve been thinking it on purpose. I’m trying not to have to kill you, so. Just stop. Go to sleep.”

“I’m not,” Hux spat, mentally floundering, and of course Ren was still listening. _Of_ _course_ Ren was still listening. Maybe Hux deserved to be murdered if a simple disturbance in his sleep schedule was going to make him this fucking stupid.

“Not _what_?”

“Thinking it on purpose,” Hux said, voice crisp with the effort to seem dismissive. Then, into the tense quiet, he inexplicably blurted, “I was just thinking it.”

There was a long beat of silence before Hux could feel Ren turn his head to stare at him. The slight red glow offered by the status indicators of the room’s appliances made his dark eyes glitter as they tracked across Hux’s face. There was something in them, imagined or otherwise, that made Hux dare to shift a little nearer, look a little closer. It was funny, the ideas that came to a person under duress.

Hux pressed a hand to Ren’s chest, his fingertips firm against that unyielding physique. When it wasn’t forcibly removed, he slowly slid it up until he had the edge of Ren’s jaw cradled in his palm. Ren was still staring back in that bold, blank way of his, watching Hux’s face. Hux added the barest suggestions of pressure, pulling Ren’s face in closer to his. When they were near enough that Hux could see the little wrinkle between Ren’s brows, Hux kissed him.

It wasn’t lost on Hux how contemptable it was to be kissing this man, this idiot boy who’d just ruined everything in a mad dash for his personal whims. There was something exciting in the way that Ren sighed into the kiss though.

Ren turned toward him, brought his arm up and around Hux’s trim shoulders to clutch at him with all that bewildering muscle and pull him in closer. It felt amazing, the heat of their bare skin when they were chest to chest, Hux’s hand moving up to push through that tumble of thick, dark hair and then return to his face. Ren opened his mouth for Hux, offering a tentative press of tongues that wasn’t a standard in Hux’s book, but felt like a punch to the gut here and now. Hux sucked Ren’s top lip in a kiss and squirmed a little closer still.

“Stop,” Ren said suddenly, his eyes squeezed shut. Hux pulled back, heart rabbiting. After a moment, he realized his hand was still splayed across Ren’s face, his thumb pressed against the sharp curve of a cheekbone. He removed it.

“Just go to sleep,” Ren said gruffly and rolled over onto his back, awkwardly clutching his hands together over his stomach for a beat, then shifting to cross his arms over his chest instead.

Back to staring at the ceiling in the dark, Hux worked toward leveling his racing heart, ordering his thoughts. He didn’t want to start deciphering the meaning of anything that had happened that day, let alone this, but. Talk about a cascade of errors in judgement. Fantastically, he hadn't been murdered immediately, and sure, sex could have been worked into a power play at _some_ point, but - Hux felt Ren huff a loud sigh and then he was looming over Hux, his wild curls obscuring his expression.

“I said go to sleep,” Ren snapped, “You never _listen_ to me.” Then he was pushing his hair out of his face and leaning down to take Hux’s lips again in a deep and enthusiastic kiss. Ren practically melted down on top of him this time, holding some of that immense weight on his forearm on the pillow next to Hux’s head, the rest pressing Hux into the mattress in a way that made him feel positively kept. They kissed like Hux hadn’t since he was a teenager, with genuine interest in the act, a little too earnest and for abundantly too long.

“You’re good at this,” Hux breathed between kisses because he wanted to say it, and the answering tremor that he felt run through Ren’s body was a surprising reward.

It soon became clear that neither of them had the energy to take this anywhere else that night. Hux wasn’t sure it was tactically appropriate enough to proceed with anyway. As their kisses tapered off to the soft, lazy drag of their lips against each other, Ren settled back onto the bed next to Hux. He took half of Hux’s pillow for himself and kept one heavy arm draped over Hux’s chest, a large hand curling over Hux’s freckled shoulder.

Whatever the hell they were doing, Hux mused as he started to drift off, this felt good.

“Stop thinking,” Ren breathed against his neck, his voice clumsy with sleep. Hux, most assuredly, did not.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @awwshuckshux if you wanna.


End file.
